RuthMorrisonPowell

Powell, Ruth Morrison 106 April 22, 1907 Oct. 20, 2013 Ruth was the first child of Alonzo and Blanche (Blazier) Morrison of Portland. She and her sister Ruby grew up in the Sunnyside neighborhood and graduated from Franklin High School. She matriculated at Oregon Agricultural College in 1925, and graduated from Oregon State College in 1929. She was a tri-delt and a student class officer. It was here she became the best friend and roommate of Elizabeth Eckelmann, who she visited in Glendale, Calif., nearly every year until Elizabeth's untimely death. Ruth followed her parents into the Masonic Order as a teenager. She was a lifetime Eastern Star and rose through the ranks to become Queen of Nydia Temple No.4, Daughters of the Nile, in Portland, in the mid-1950s. Ruth taught school in the early years of the Depression, moving from school to school in those lean years. She taught in Springfield, Bay City, Rainier, Hermiston and Parkrose. She left teaching in 1934 to care for her mother and manage the Meier & Frank Tea Room (until she asked for a leave of absence to go with her mother and her pals, Kitty Wells and Lavina Lynch, on a "girls night out" to Hawaii). In fall of 1937, she married Dr. John H. Powell and made her home for a time on S.E. Hawthorne Avenue. She then moved to her husband's hobby farm on S.W. Dosch Road and into a house he had built for her. She named the farm Bridlemile because she wanted a bridle trail circumnavigating their property. After WWII, when the farm was subdivided for housing, it became the Bridlemile plat, eventually giving its name to the Bridlemile neighborhood. In 1960, she assumed management of the remaining assets of Strell Development and Northwest Investments and finished out sales of the Bridlemile, Brookford, Dunthorpe and Wilcox Estates housing developments. Ruth loved family, friends and her masonic affiliations above all else. She devoted countless hours to the Daughters of the Nile, where she founded the Nydia temple dancers, and to Shriners Hospital. She is survived by her son, Jerald (Martha); grandsons, Eugene and Ian, all of Portland; great-grandchildren, Erica and Scott, of Los Angeles and Kirkland, respectively; and their mother, Patricia (Ray) of Monroe, Wash. She was predeceased by her husband, John; and grandson, James. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013, at the First United Methodist Church, 1838 S.W. Jefferson, Portland. A reception will follow. In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Ruth may be made to the Shriners Hospital for Children, www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org.